Givens Creative

Life at the intersection of faith, nature, history and art

Nature

Today’s Word: Restoration

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Cockscomb Butte, Sedona. SJG photo

Centennial Trail in Sedona, Arizona is an easy, short, paved hike, only two-thirds of a mile out and back. More of a stroll than a hike, really. The view is pretty good of the nearby red rock formations, including the imposing Cockscomb Butte. The sunsets are great because it’s a flat, open area and you can see both the sunset itself and the golden light that plays on the mountains to the horizon’s east. So while it’s not much of a trail, the views can be rewarding. But the most interesting thing about Centennial Trail, for me, is the knowledge that it was built on the site of Sedona’s long-time city dump. You can still see the sun glancing off small bits of glass and metal that are the remains of decades of debris. The city restored the area for Sedona’s Centennial celebration in 2002, thus the name.

On Centennial Trail, Sedona. SJG photo

The trail is a reminder that beauty — both the physical beauty of the world and our own inner beauty that flows from the presence of the Spirit of God — can very often lie under our histories of neglect and even abuse. We can walk the paths of our lives and feel like the remains of someone else’s life, not realizing that we are actually choice spots of radiant beauty, vantage points from which others might someday be able to pass en route to glimpsing the glory of God just beyond us. We await only the nurturing touch and the gentle weeding of the gardener’s hand. Restored…we can be restored.

Ask yourself in silence: What is the debris of my life? From what do I need to be restored?

Note: I wrote a similar piece a few years ago about another former city dump in Ft. Bragg, California.

Today’s Word: Perspective

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Chimney Rock, Sedona. SJG photo

This week, Sue and I are in Sedona, Arizona, soaking up the beauty and grandeur of God’s creation as seen in the red rock formations that encircle the town. Look in any direction and the scene before you has the power to take your breath away if you are open to the power of creation to move and inspire you. And it’s pretty easy to feel inspired — that is, full of the breath and spirit of God — when you’re surrounded by such majesty.

But one of the things we’ve noticed as we take our daily hikes is how our perspective on this beauty changes as the trails twist and turn through the foothills. One such trail encircles a formation called “Chimney Rock,” named for the obvious shape of the rock when viewed from a distance and from a certain angle. When approaching the trail from Highway 89A, it would be hard not to say, “Yep, it looks just like a chimney.”

But as we began the slow trek around Chimney Rock, the truth became evident. For Chimney Rock is not a solitary obelisk at all but, in fact, three closely aligned towers. Viewed from this different perspective, we see more than before. Only by immersing ourselves in the landscape, by getting off the highway and onto the footpath, is this made clear.

Chimney Rock, Sedona. SJG photo.

It is a lesson that translates easily to our lives of faith, where we are called to see beyond the obvious, to embrace the opportunity to see God in new ways and from fresh perspectives. Like taking a walk on a serpentine path on which you cannot see the way ahead or know for sure where it ends, our lives of prayer immerse us in the mystery of God and reveal aspects of the divine that we cannot fathom from the place we began.

Ask yourself in silence: Where do I get my view of God? Has it changed over the years? Do I challenge myself to see God in new ways?

And a belated congratulations to my friend and fellow blogger from Boston, Kathleen Matson, for her beloved Red Sox’s victory over my St. Louis Cardinals in this year’s World Series. Next year!

Today’s Word: Fog

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The fog begins to clear on Rice Lake. SJG photo

I woke up yesterday morning on Rice Lake near Whitewater, Wisconsin. Just down the hill from the house I knew there was a beautiful lake with a handful of tiny islands dotting the distant shore. I knew the trees on that far side offered a mosaic of greens, yellows, reds and oranges. I knew fish were jumping and that ducks and geese were still coming and going, slowly making their way south. But I knew all those things from memory and faith in the unseen, for a white veil of fog had fallen in the early morning on the world outside the window and I couldn’t see a thing.

My view from the window yesterday is an apt metaphor for our lives of faith, for “we walk by faith and not by sight” as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians (5:7). How often — perhaps especially when we’re facing difficulties, stress or sickness — do we feel as if we’re cautiously and haltingly trudging through life blinded by a fog of unknowing? There’s no way to go it alone, no way to safely wander and explore, knowing that we might take a tumble down a nearby hill or off a waiting cliff. Our lives of faith don’t call for foolish bravado; they call for childlike trust, holding the hand of the one who calls us by name and leads us into the fog, who knows every nook and cranny of our lives like the back of his hand.

Ask yourself in silence: When was the last time you felt you were walking in a fog? Could you find God’s hand in the midst of the mist?

Today I ask for special prayers for reader Dotty Z’s husband, Joe, who is suffering in multiple ways right now, including cancer and heart disease. God knows who and where he is, so tonight offer up a prayer for peace and healing. Dotty writes: “If someone out there would just say one little prayer, God will walk us through the tough days ahead. We are praying there will be something to help his weak heart. The tests — echo and stress —were not good but I pray there is enough left to have stints or meds to strengthen the muscle.  Stay well and let’s all pray for each other every day…”

Today’s Word: Migratory

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Just passing through. Riverlands Bird Sanctuary, West Alton, Mo. SJG photo.

One of the things I like best about autumn and winter in the Midwest is watching the migratory birds that pass through on their way to Mexico and Central and South America. Here in St. Louis, near the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois rivers, clouds of birds fill the sky on any given day, moving, weaving and blending together like vast schools of fish. Even as scientists and naturalists study and better understand these migratory patterns and flyways, what they really can’t fully comprehend is this: What exactly pulls these birds to fly these long routes, which remain virtually the same over years and generations of birds? What is it within them that pulls them like a magnet to their winter homes and then back to their summer habitats? It’s a mystery, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

And what is it that over and over pulls us toward this thing — this power, this presence — that we call God? No matter how much we love this life and the world around us, this pull is a gentle yet powerful reminder that we are more than what makes us human. We are migratory, souls passing through our bodies on our way to somewhere else. Like birds flying the long trip for the first time, we cannot even imagine what it is we are traveling toward, but we continue to fly, drawn by a force we can only sense as being there, as being love. It’s a mystery, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

Ask yourself in silence: In these moments of silence, can I sense the pull of God? Am I willing to lean into this pull and follow?

Today’s Word: Consider

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Consider the lilies of the field. SJG photo.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus encourages us to “consider the lilies of the field” as a model for our lives. They don’t worry much about their lives, and neither should we, we are told. But let’s consider these lilies a little more. Consider these things: The lily does not choose where it stands in the field, or which weeds and thorns grow up around it. It cannot control the weather or how much sunlight it receives. In short, it cannot change the things it cannot change, like what kind of lily it is or what color. What it can do is stand and endure. It can “bloom where it is planted” and become the lily it was meant to become. It cannot become a tulip or an oak tree. The lily is beautiful on its own, as are we all in the sight of God.

In a recent Ignatian prayer exercise, I was asked to consider these lilies and, in doing so, to consider “how much of me is mine and how much is God’s.” It’s not an easy question, for some things seem to come from neither God nor me. Unless I abuse or don’t take care of my body, I don’t really “choose” health or illness, and neither does God choose for us illness or violence against us. Nevertheless, the choices we make, the will of God, and the things that just “happen” to us as humans in an imperfect world intermingle to become what we think of as our “lives.”

What we are called to do in the midst of all this imperfection is the punch line of this particular parable: “Seek God first and the rest will fall into place.”  Like the lily, we cannot change where and how we were raised or how well we were nurtured. To a great extent we cannot control our health, although we are certainly called to care for ourselves and respect our bodies and what we put into them or do with them. Our greatest desire – wherever we are in life – should be responding to the will of the gardener and master planter, the sower of the seed.

Ask yourself in silence: What are the things I most worry about? Do I worry about things I cannot change? How often do I seek God first?

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